Naguib Mahfouz - Palace Walk

Kamal had objected as forcefully as he could, because he realized intuitively that this supervisor, who would keep nothing about him secret from his mother, would put a decisive end to all the mischief and tricks he enjoyed in the street. That would destroy this brief, happy time of his day as he went from one of his prisons to the other: home and school. He was also intensely annoyed at walking down the street accompanied by this woman whose excessive weight and faltering step would certainly attract attention. He was forced to submit to her supervision, since his father had ordered him to accept her. The most he could do to comfort himself was to scold her whenever she got too close to him, since he had decreed that she should stay several meters behind him.

In this manner they made their way to Khalil Agha School on Thursday morning, the fifth day of the demonstrations in Cairo. When they reached the door of the school, Umm Hanafi approached the gatekeeper and, acting according to her daily instructions received at home, asked him, "Are the pupils in the school?"

The man answered her indifferently, "Some have gone in and others have left. The headmaster is not interfering with anyone".

This answer was a bad surprise for Kamal. He was prepared to hear the response he had come to expect since Monday-namely: "The pupils are on strike". Then they would return home where he would spend the whole day in freedom. That made him love the revolution from afar. His soul urged him to flee to escape the consequences of this new reply. He told the gatekeeper, "I'm one of those who leave".

He walked away from the school with the woman behind him. When she asked him why he had not gone in with the others who were staying, he implored her repeatedly, for the first time in his life, to deceive his mother by telling her that the pupils were on strike. To strengthen his entreaty and gain her affection, he prayed for her to have a long and happy life when they were passing by the mosque of al-Husayn. Umm Hanafi was unable to keep the truth, as she had heard it, from his mother, who chided him for being lazy and ordered the woman to take him back to school. They left the house again and Kamal treated her to a fierce tongue-lashing and accused her of treachery and betrayal.

In school, he found only boys his age, the youngsters. The others, the overwhelming majority, were on strike. About a third of the pupils were present in his class, which contained a higher percentage of younger students than any other. The teacher ordered them to review the previous lessons. Meanwhile he busied himself correcting their exercises and ignored them as though they actually were on strike. Kamal opened a book. He pretended to read but paid no attention to the book. He did not like staying at school with nothing to do, when he could have been with the strikers or at home enjoying the vacation that these amazing days had unexpectedly granted him. He found school oppressive in a way he had not before.

His imagination flew away to the strikers outside with astonishment and curiosity. He often wondered which view of them was accurate. Were they "daredevils" as his mother claimed, with no feeling for themselves or their families, unnecessarily putting their lives in jeopardy? Or were they "heroes" as Fahmy described them, sacrificing their lives to struggle against God’s enemy and their own? He was often inclined to agree with his mother because of his resentment toward the older pupils at his school who were among the strikers. They had made the worst possible impression on him and the other young pupils like him with the rough treatment and contempt they meted out in the school courtyard, where they challenged the younger boys with their enormous bodies and insolent mustaches.

Yet he could not totally accept this view, because Fahmy’s opinion always carried a lot of weight with him and was hard to ignore. Kamal could not deny them the heroism Fahmy ascribed to them. He even wished he could observe their bloody battles from a safe place. Something extremely serious was no doubt underway, otherwise why were the Egyptians striking and banding together to clash with the soldiers?… And what soldiers? The English! The English… when a mention of that name had once sufficed to clear the streets. What had happened to the world and to people? This amazing struggle was so overwhelming that its basic elements were engraved in the boy’s soul without his having made any conscious effort to remember them. The terms "Sa'd Zaghlul," "the English," "the students," "the martyrs," "handbills," and "demonstrations" became active forces inspiring him at the deepest levels, even if he was only a perplexed bystander when it came to understanding what they stood for. His bewilderment was doubled by the fact that the members of his family reacted differently to the events and at times in contrary ways. While Fahmy was outraged and attacked the English with lethal hatred, yearning for Sa'd so much it brought tears to his eyes, Yasin discussed the news with calm concern and quiet sorrow that did not prevent him from continuing his normal routine of chatting, laughing, and reciting poetry and stories followed by an evening on the town that lasted until midnight. Kamal’s mother kept praying that God would bring peace and make life secure again by cleansing the hearts of both the Egyptians and the English. Zaynab, his brother’s wife, was the most disconcerting of them all. She was frightened by the course of events, and the only person she could find to vent her anger on was Sa'd Zaghlul himself, whom she accused of having caused all the evil. "If he had lived the way God’s children should, meekly and peacefully, no one would have harmed him in any manner and this conflagration would not have broken out".

Thus the boy’s enthusiasm was set on fire by the thought of the struggle itself, and his sorrow overflowed at the thought of death in the abstract, without his having any clear understanding of what was going on around him, locally or nationally. He would have had a fine opportunity to observe a demonstration at close range or to participate in one, if only in the school courtyard, the day the pupils of Khalil Agha School had been called to strike for the first time, had not the headmaster, to Kamal’s distress, immediately shut the younger pupils up in their classrooms. He had lost that opportunity and found himself kept indoors, although he could listen to the loud chanting with a mixture of astonishment and secret delight, inspired perhaps by the chaos affecting everything and mercilessly wreaking havoc with the tedious daily routine. He had missed the chance then to participate in a demonstration, just as he had lost the opportunity today to enjoy a holiday at home. He would remain confined to this boring assembly, looking at a book with eyes that saw nothing, cautiously and fearfully exchanging pinches with a friend across a book bag until the end of the long day came.

Then, suddenly, something attracted his attention. It might have been an unfamiliar voice at some distance or a ringing in his ears. He looked around him to determine what he had heard. He found that the pupils' heads were raised and that they were looking at each other. Then everyone stared at the windows overlooking the street. It was a reality, not something imaginary, that had attracted their attention. Different voices were blended together into an enormous, incomprehensible sound. Because of the distance, it seemed like the roaring of waves far away. As it grew closer it could be termed a din, or even an advancing din. There was a commotion in the classroom. Pupils started whispering. Then a voice called out: "A demonstration!"

Kamal’s heart pounded. His eyes took on a gleam of joy mixed with dismay. The din came closer and closer until the chanting could be heard clearly, thundering and raging in all directions, surrounding the school. His ears were bombarded by the words that had filled his mind during the past days: "Sa'd," "independence," "protectorate".…